Carlos Rafael Rivera Experimented With ‘Lessons In Chemistry’s Musical Themes, And A Melody For Brie Larson’s Unique Character That “Like A River, Meanders” – Sound & Screen TV
Apple TV+’s Lessons in Chemistry is the story of biogeneticist cooking show host Elizabeth Zott. Composer Carlos Rafael Rivera said he had to answer the question “what would a biogeneticist sound like?” when pilot director Sarah Adina Smith asked him to write the series’ music. This led him to some musical experimentation of his own.
“She started recommending playlists of bands like Boards of Canada, really out-there music,” Rivera said in an interview for Deadline’s Sound & Screen Television live-music event. “That music that I wrote didn’t work. It was something that we tried though.”
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Series creator Lee Eisenberg steered Rivera back to more traditional dramatic themes. Still, Rivera found he could work in some of his experimental music.
“Piano became the central instrument because of its simplicity and also it can address really emotional aspects of the characters along with the orchestra,” Rivera said. “A lot of the synthesizer sounds that were born out of the experiment landed in the show. So it wasn’t a failed experiment.”
For the show’s opening titles, Rivera wanted to reflect how unexpected Zott is. Not only does she turn her science into a 1950s broadcast sensation, but Zott herself is an unexpected character.
“I wanted to do was give her a melody that went to unexpected places,” Rivera said. “So I wrote a melody that kind of kept it in different terms like her life. Like a river, it meanders.”
One episodic moment worried Rivera. In episode 3, Zott goes for a morning run and ends up running in slow motion. Because it was such an iconic scene Rivera worried he would screw it up, but he ended up drawing on his theme for her love interest, Calvin (Lewis Pullman).
“It took a few tries but it really, really was about using Calvin’s themes that I’d come up with in a way that reflected the moment,” Rivera said.
Ultimately, Rivera said, he likes approaching the problem solving of television music with unique demands on a tight schedule.
“Solving the problem of finding the tone, finding the characters, finding the themes and getting the approvals is what I love about this,” Rivera said.
Check out the panel video above.
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